63

'Can you hear voices in front of us?' Dexter asked.

Baverstock was dismissive. 'Yes, but don't worry about it. A lot of tourists come here to do this walk.

They think it gets them closer to God. Just keep looking.'

'I won't be sorry to get out of here,' Hoxton muttered.

'This place gives me the creeps.'

Bronson could feel Angela's feet moving slightly on his shoulders as she stretched up to reach into the cavity.

'What is it?' he asked.

'I don't know. Something round and solid. Hang on. I'll try to pull it out.'

She reached up again and tugged at the object her fingers had found. There was a scraping sound, and then she lost her grip on it. Something tumbled down, clattering against the rock wall, and fell with a splash into the water.

'Oh, damn it.'

* * *

Less than twenty yards behind them, Tony Baverstock stopped dead and stood in absolute silence, listening. Then he turned to Hoxton.

'I recognize that voice,' he whispered. 'That's Angela Lewis, which means the man with her is probably her exhusband.

These are the two I told you about. That means she's following the same trail we are. She's been looking at the same clues as I have, and she must have come to the same conclusion.'

'But has she found the Silver Scroll?' Hoxton asked.

'That's all that matters.'

'I don't know,' Baverstock said, 'but we'd better get up there and find out.'

Without a word, Hoxton and Dexter moved forward, heading down the tunnel towards the sound of the two voices, Hoxton pulling a small semi-automatic pistol from his pocket as he did so.

'Was that it, Angela?' Bronson asked.

'It was definitely something. Hang on – let me just check and see if there's anything else in the hole.' She paused, then added: 'No, and it isn't really a cavity, more like a small ledge.'

Quickly, she climbed down off Bronson's shoulders and back onto the floor of the tunnel.

'It landed just about there,' Bronson said, shining his torch at the water.

'Good,' a new voice said, and two torches snapped into life, their beams instantly dazzling Bronson and Angela.

'Who the hell are you?' Angela demanded.

Nobody responded immediately, but Bronson heard the unmistakable snicking sound as the slide of an automatic pistol was pulled back to chamber a round.

'Get behind me, Angela,' he said.

'Very noble,' the voice mocked. 'But if you don't get the hell out of here right now, you'll both be dead. You've got five seconds.'

'We—' Angela said, then stopped talking as Bronson grabbed her arm and began pulling her down the tunnel.

'Come on, Angela,' Bronson said. 'We're out of here.'

Hoxton waited until the splashing sounds had diminished almost to nothing as Bronson and Angela scrambled away down the tunnel, heading towards the Pool of Siloam.

'Right,' he said, turning to Dexter and putting away his pistol. He aimed the beam of his torch at the dark surface of the water. 'That's where they said it fell, so why don't you find out what it was?'

'Me?' Dexter asked.

'There's nobody else here, is there? I'll stand guard, make sure those two don't come back.'

Dexter muttered something under his breath, then handed his torch to Hoxton, took a deep breath and reached down. His head went below the surface as his hands searched the floor of the tunnel, and a few seconds later he popped up again, holding a round object.

'What is it?' Baverstock demanded eagerly as he walked up to join his two companions.

Hoxton focused the beam of his torch on the object, then muttered in disappointment. Dexter was holding nothing more than a round rock, about four inches in diameter.

'Is that it?'

'It's all I could find down there on the floor,' Dexter said, 'but I'll take another look.'

He handed the stone to Hoxton and submerged again.

'There's nothing else down there,' Dexter said a few seconds later, standing upright and shaking the water out of his hair.

Hoxton shone his torch up and around them, then focused on the same ledge Bronson had spotted. 'It had to have come from up there,' he said, his voice sharp with bitterness. 'Christ – what a let-down. I really thought that was it. I guess it's been sitting on that ledge for the last few million years. Right, let's move on.'

Bronson and Angela stepped out of the dark archway and emerged blinking into bright sunlight at the Pool of Siloam. Their transit through Hezekiah's Tunnel had taken them well over an hour, but they'd covered the last section as quickly as they could, not knowing who the armed men behind them were, or what they wanted. And they were still empty-handed, apart from the small waterproof bag holding their torch batteries.

The Pool was at the bottom of an oblong space between some of Jerusalem's old stone buildings. Almost opposite the archway, a flight of concrete steps, the open side protected by a steel banister, led up to the street above.

About half a dozen young children wearing tattered shorts played in the water, splashing about, laughing and calling to each other, their gaiety in stark contrast to Bronson's mood.

'Well, that was a complete waste of time,' he grumbled, as he and Angela climbed the steps out of the Pool. They were both dripping wet and still cold, though the heat of the sun was already starting to dry their light clothes.

'Not the most pleasant experience of my life,' Angela agreed.

'But we're out and safe, that's the main thing. Are you sure that what you dislodged from that ledge was just a stone, not a cylinder or anything like that?'

'No, definitely not. It was round and heavy. To me, it felt just like a rock, and that's what it sounded like when it hit the wall of the tunnel. Now, who the hell were those two men?'

'I don't know, but I do know that we're in serious danger. This is the second time in two days that we've been threatened by a man with a gun. Both times we've been really lucky to get away, and I have no idea how long our luck's going to hold. I don't know who those two men were – they sounded too English to be part of Yacoub's gang – but they're obviously looking for the same thing as us. Look, why don't we call it a day? No ancient relic is worth dying for, surely?'

'I'm sorry, Chris, but if our deduction is right, many people have already died over the centuries, either looking for it or trying to protect it. I'm not about to give up, not when I think we're so close to finding it. I'm determined to see this through to the end, whatever the cost.'